1. Include a Trade and/or Media page that includes media contact information on your website.
It’s incredibly easy to add a simple page to your business’s website that holds information such as the name, email address, and phone number of your media contact for Press who need to get in touch. This is the bare minimum expectation for a brand in 2022. The most common place to provide a link to this page is in the footer or at the bottom of your home page (though many businesses now include menus at both the top of their home page and text links at the bottom). Make it easy to find this page by including links where media expect to find them.
2. Make sure that your media contact is someone that is qualified to deal with media requests and that they are available to respond to calls or messages within a short amount of time.
If your business does not provide a media contact or make it easy to get in touch with someone that is qualified to respond to media requests, it is more likely that your business will get passed over or left out of articles it might otherwise have been included in.
For example, it doesn’t make sense to direct media contacts to your business’s info@ address if you know that that email inbox is seldomly checked. Similarly, it doesn’t make sense to direct media contacts to your general tasting room email address if your tasting room employees aren’t qualified or prepared to deal with media inquiries. This causes significant delays in response time and can lead to the media contact moving on to other businesses while their information is being passed back and forth as your business decides who to direct that person to.
Assign someone as your media contact. This does not have to be a PR manager or Marketing Manager (many small businesses do not have these positions) it can simply be a full-time employee who has been trained on how to respond to and deal with media inquiries. The most important things are to provide an email address that is a permanent address that will always be responded to in a timely manner and to make sure that the individual communicating with Press has access to key brand information such as the history of the business (including important dates), bios for the owners/founders, product specs, brand and product images, recent press, information about important initiatives or partnerships, etc.
3. Include as much specific and relevant information as possible on your business’s website.
Nothing is more frustrating to a journalist than going to a brand’s website to confirm a specific piece of information or fact check something that would normally be able to be fact-checked on a brand’s website and finding that none of that information is included there. It is in your business’s interest to include as much key information about your business as possible on your website. Things such as the date your business was founded (timelines are especially helpful), who owns and/or works at the business (key roles) including bios, your business’s mission statement, what products or services your business provides (with product specs), any charity or non profit partnerships, special certifications, accreditations, awards, or accolades, etc.
The more information that can be accessed via your website, the better. When it comes to making journalists’ jobs easier, the importance of providing plenty of relevant information, facts, and resources on your website cannot be understated.
4. Make sure that your business has a selection of high-resolution brand images that fit different themes.
For example, if you are a winery you will want to have high-resolution (professional quality) images of both your products and your property as well as your winemaker, founder/owner (s), etc. It is also good to have event images, images of your experiences (tours, library tastings, reserve tastings, etc.), images of your tasting space with and without people in them, etc.
Think about the different types of services, products, and experiences that you offer and the types of articles that are published about businesses in your niche. Also, keep in mind that the investment you make in procuring professional-quality images will benefit your business in a number of ways. Good quality, relevant brand images can be used on your website, in your online marketing and advertising campaigns, and for any print advertising or marketing collateral.
In short, an investment in good-quality brand images is one of the best investments you can make and will pay itself off many times over.